Taiwan’s People First Party (PFP) of James Soong held a news conference on the morning of May 19, 2016, to talk about the challenges facing the new Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) new government. It listed nine ills of Taiwan that need to be resolved immediately. These are nine ills that have accumulated over the past 16 years (2000-2016) [covering the administrations of both DPP president Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008) and incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016)]. The statement by the PFP says that the new DPP government has three months to resolve these issues.

The new government should intensify efforts to develop the economy and shed the old ways of thinking and the lost cause of pursuing economic growth rate.

The statement describes Taiwan as the “haven for con artists and fraud”, the “haven of speculation”, and the “haven of opportunism and of opportunists”. In 2015, foreign capital investment in Taiwanese stocks surpassed US$200 billion while foreign direct investment in Taiwan was only US$4.76 billion compared to US$120 billion in the Chinese Communist mainland, US$100 billion in Hong Kong, and US$10 to US$15 billion in Indonesia and South Korea. Foreign capital has been speculating in Taiwan stocks and in foreign exchange while Taiwan’s exports have declined continuously for 15 months.

“This is all because of policy mistakes of the past 16 years”, the PFP statement says.

Another challenge to the DPP’s dress rehearsal for the musical performance dubbed “Democratic March” was launched on May 19, 2016, after the rehearsal on May 18, 2016. The performance originally included performers holding up protest banners calling for “the dismantling of the government”. The producer explained that the inclusion of such protest banners was to show the evolution of Taiwan’s democratization. However, many civic organizations took to the streets on May 18-19, 2016, in protest. Protestors complained that the inclusion of such protest banners is political manipulation of previous social movements and a “despicable distortion” of the intention of the former protest events including the White Lilly Student Movement.

The DPP immediately ordered the producer to remove that segment of the program to appease the protesting civic organizations.

One comment says that Taiwan’s democratization is not the result of the efforts of the Democratic Progressive Party. In fact, it was former Kuomintang president Chiang Ching-kuo who abolished the 38-year martial law and allowed the formation of opposition political parties of which the Democratic Progressive Party was only one among many of opposition leaders who emerged onto the political scene after being incarcerated as political prisoners, such as the now famous rotund female mayor of Kaohsiung City, major Chen Chu.

It is utter arrogance on the part of the Democratic Progressive Party to claim that it represents Taiwan’s democratization.

Many Taiwanese businessmen on the Chinese mainland and chairwoman of the Kuomintang, little hot pepper Hung Hsiu-chu said on May 19, 2016, that “without recognizing the ‘1992 consensus’, Taiwan will face a period of instability beginning on May 20, 2016, inauguration day.”